:: Govind Talwalkar

Will the real Jaswant please stand up?

By Govind Talwalkar

Sep 01 : It is strange that both Lal Krishna Advani and Jaswant Singh realised the greatness of Muhammad Ali Jinnah after a visit to Pakistan. In 2005, during a visit to Pakistan, Mr Advani reportedly hailed Pakistan’s founder and, on his return, had to relinquish the post of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president. In 2009, Mr Singh praised Jinnah and was expelled from the party.

Mr Singh’s book Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence, reveals his confusion and distortion of facts. Fuelled by the desire to do justice to Jinnah who, he thinks, is demonised by Indians, Mr Singh ventured to demonise Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

He also thought it expedient to admonish Mahatma Gandhi for treating Jinnah as a Muslim leader and first ousting him from the Home Rule League and, later, from the Congress itself. But in any democratic set-up such things happen.

Mr Singh is right to endorse Jinnah’s position regarding the Khilafat Movement. But the Hindu-Muslim riots that followed cannot be attributed to the Khilafat Movement alone. There were riots between the two communities before and after that.

Jinnah left the Congress as Mahatma Gandhi succeeded in changing the Constitution and the creed of the organisation. Khadi and spinning became obligatory and the Congress’ statement of belief changed to civil disobedience. Jinnah opposed this as he feared that it would lead to lawlessness.

Mr Singh blames Nehru for rejecting the British offer of giving India a dominion status — India would be independent but would have to retain the British monarch as its head of state. The book says that Nehru squandered the opportunity of reaching an understanding with Jinnah. But there was no such offer — neither in the 20s nor at the Round Table Conference in the beginning of the 30s.

No doubt that Jinnah was a great man. It is also an undisputed fact that Jinnah created Pakistan, and that this creation was not out of nothing. Mr Singh cites Gandhi who regarded Jinnah as a great man. But he is blissfully unaware that Jinnah also paid Gandhiji the same compliments. Any important historical event should not be considered in isolation.

In his book, Mr Singh has held Congress leaders, especially Nehru, responsible for the Partition. He maintains that both Nehru and Sardar Patel were proponents of centralised polity, while Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi were for a federal state.

Was Jinnah consistent about federalism?

It is best here to refer to The Sole Spokesman, a scholarly book by Ayesha Jalal, a well-known Pakistani historian. She says that while Jinnah aimed at equal power-sharing with the Congress in the governance of India, he insisted on a federal Constitution. But opposed the idea of a federal government at the Round Table Conference. However, leaders like Fazl-i-Hussain of Punjab, who were very active then, prevailed in getting a federation. Afterwards, in 1937, Jinnah saw that the Congress and the Muslim League joint ministry could not be formed and realised the danger in accepting the demands of the provincial leaders.

In the elections under the 1935 Act, the Muslim League could not form a ministry in any Muslim-majority province — from Sindh to the North-West Frontier Province. At that time Jinnah was not very powerful. He was accepted as the Muslim representative in the Central Assembly by chief ministers of the Muslim-majority provinces at a great cost. Details are in Ms Jalal’s book.

Mr Singh is free to criticise Nehru to his heart’s content, but he is wrong to hold Nehru solely responsible for the failure of the Congress-Muslim League talks about forming a joint ministry in Uttar Pradesh after the 1937 election. Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman, who was negotiating with Congress leaders, has said that Nehru was not involved in the negotiations. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Govind Ballabh Pant and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai represented the Congress and all the correspondence was with Azad (Pathway to Pakistan, by Choudhry Khaliquzzaman).

Later, as a Governor-General of Pakistan, Jinnah wielded extraordinary powers making his ministers powerless. He advocated loose federation only when he wanted to have two states in India and the Centre to hold minimum powers. But in Pakistan, his policy was quite the contrary.

Blaming the Congress for not conceding Jinnah’s demands is also unjust as Jinnah wanted the Muslim League to be recognised as the sole representative body of the Muslims and the Congress as a Hindu organisation which was not acceptable. Jinnah became powerful when he gave the slogan of "Islam in danger" and called for Pakistan.

In his new incarnation, Mr Singh laments the demonisation of Jinnah by Indians. But the BJP, to which he belonged for 30 years, was at the forefront in this game. He has asked Indians to look into the eyes of Muslims and stop treating them as aliens. But as a BJP leader he should have asked for action against Kalyan Singh, Narendra Modi, even Mr Advani, or at least expressed his repentance over Babri Masjid and Gujarat riots.

Mr Singh, like Mr Advani, is much impressed by Jinnah’s speech on August 11, 1947, and so they both depicted Jinnah in a secular image. But Mr Singh should have known that Sharif-ul Mujahid, director of the Quaid-e-Azam Academy, described the speech as "a serious lapse", and that Jinnah himself soon changed tack, falling back upon Pakistan’s identity as a state of Muslims. Veteran Communist Jyoti Basu said in 2005 that he was not interested in Jinnah’s "secular" lifestyle but rather in his instigation of Direct Action in 1946 which led to horrific bloodshed and made Pakistan imminent.

As the foreign minister in the National Democratic Alliance government, Mr Singh interacted with Strobe Talbott, assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration. Back then Mr Singh tried to persuade Mr Talbott to give up Pakistan and establish close relations with India.

While advocating this policy he expatiated why Muslim nations could not have democratic polity. Mr Talbott had the impression that Mr Singh wanted US and India to be allies against Pakistan. (Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy and The Bomb by Strobe Talbott).

So which Mr Singh should the Indian people acclaim? The present one, who is a great friend of Pakistan, or the advocate of India-US united front against Pakistan?